CCSD’s potential budget deficit could lead to staff reductions and affect school programming

Teacher raises approved in December were seemingly not included in the 2024-2025 CCSD budget, prompting concerns about potential staff reductions to offset the gap. Gov. Joe Lombardo has pledged to investigate the district over a potential budget deficit.

Following reports of a potential budget deficit in Clark County School District (CCSD) last week, chief financial officer Jason Goudie was ousted, leaving the district scrambling to figure out how to offset the costs of teacher raises.  

Deputy Chief Financial Officer Diane Bartholomew is now serving in an interim capacity, the district said in a statement. 

News first broke after several principals voiced concerns that teacher salaries were not accurately reflected in their 2024-2025 budgets. The potential miscalculation — which could lead to staff reductions and affect school programming — was found during the district’s regularly-scheduled year-end accounting process that typically concludes by mid-October, CCSD Interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell said in a statement.

According to Larsen-Mitchell, the district is still “unable to confirm whether a central budget deficit exists” and is working on “every attempt to absorb any confirmed deficit centrally with minimal impact to students and staff.”

“I would like to provide an update on recent challenges related to the release of school strategic budgets and apologize for any confusion and time taken away from supporting students and staff,” Larsen-Mitchell’s statement read. “We have consistently communicated with principals who cannot absorb the changes that every effort will be made to provide assistance to those schools.”

Schools were expecting changes to their budgets because of lower enrollment and an approximate $5,700 annual increase to the average teacher salary — which were seemingly not included in the $3.5 billion budget that CCSD’s School Board approved in May.

In December, the teachers union and CCSD agreed to what they called “the most substantial educator contract in the district’s history,” which laid out a 18% raise over the course of the two-year contract: 10% in the first year, which were retroactive to July 1, 2023, and 8% in the second year. 

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo has pledged to investigate the district over a potential budget deficit. Meanwhile, Goudie has claimed he was fired “without cause.”